Isaac ben Solomon Ashkenazi Luria (; born died July 25, 1572 Ha'ari Hakadosh or Arizal, was a leading rabbi and Jewish mystic in the community of Safed in the Galilee region of Ottoman Palestine, now Israel. He is considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah, his teachings being referred to as Lurianic Kabbalah.
While his direct literary contribution to the Kabbalistic school of Safed was extremely minute (he wrote only a few poems), his spiritual fame led to their veneration and the acceptance of his authority. The works of his disciples compiled his oral teachings into writing. Every custom of Luria was scrutinized, and many were accepted, even against previous practice. The Ari Ashkenazi Synagogue, also located in Safed, was built in memory of Luria during the late 16th century.
Early life
150px|thumb|alt=A letter sent to Luria while he lived in Egypt.|A letter sent to Luria while he lived in Egypt
Luria was born in 1534 in Jerusalem
While still a child, Luria lost his father and was raised by his rich maternal uncle Mordechai Frances, a mültazim (tax farmer) from Cairo in Ottoman Egypt. His uncle placed him under the best Jewish teachers, including the leading rabbinic scholar David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra.
At the age of fifteen, he married a cousin, the daughter of Mordechai Frances, and, being amply provided for financially, he was able to continue his studies. Around the age of twenty-two, he became engrossed in the study of the Zohar, a significant work of the Kabbalah that had recently been printed for the first time, and adopted the life of a recluse. Retreating to the banks of the Nile for seven years, he secluded himself in an isolated cottage, giving himself up entirely to meditation. He visited his family only on Shabbat. But even at home, he would not utter a word, even to his wife.
Teachings
thumb|135px|right|Ark in the [[Ari Ashkenazi Synagogue. Luria was called Ha'ari, "the Lion".]]
In 1569, Luria moved back to the Jerusalem Sanjak, and after a short sojourn there, where his new kabbalistic system seemed to have met with little success, he settled in the Safed Sanjak. Safed in the Galilee had become a center for kabbalistic studies over the previous decades, led by Moses ben Jacob Cordovero. There is evidence that Luria also regarded Cordovero as his teacher: Joseph Sambari (1640–1703), an Egyptian chronicler, testified that Cordovero was "the Ari's teacher for a very short time". Luria probably arrived in early 1570, and Cordovero died on June 27 that year (the 23d day of Tammuz). Bereft of their most prominent authority and teacher, the community looked for new guidance, and Luria helped fill Cordovero's former role.
Soon Luria had two classes of disciples: novices, to whom he expounded elementary kabbalah, and initiates, who became the repositories of his secret teachings and the formulas and intentions of prayer. The most renowned of the initiates was Hayyim ben Joseph Vital, who, according to his master, possessed a soul that Adam's sin had not soiled.
Luria delivered his lectures spontaneously, without ever writing down his ideas (with a few exceptions, including kabbalistic poems in rabbinical Aramaic for the Shabbat table). The foremost advocate of his kabbalistic system was Vital, who collected all the disciples' lecture notes. Numerous works were produced from these notes, the most important of which was the Etz Chaim, "Tree of Life", in eight volumes (see below). Originally, it circulated only in manuscript copies. Each of Luria's disciples had to pledge—under pain of excommunication—not to allow any copy be made for a foreign country, so that for a time all the manuscripts remained in Ottoman Syria. Eventually, one was brought to Europe and was published at Zolkiev in 1772 by Isaac Satanow.